Willfully transporting an individual in interstate and foreign commerce with intent that such individual engage in prostituion

FIRST CHARGE US/STATE CODE CITATION:

18 U.S.C. § 2

FIRST CHARGE VERDICT/PLEA:

Unknown

FIRST CHARGE SENTENCE:

SECOND CHARGE:

Conspiring to conduct, control, manage, supervise, direct and own all and part of a business, knowing that the business was an illegal money transmitting business, which affected interstate and foreign commerce.

SECOND CHARGE US/STATE CODE CITATION:

18 U.S.C. § 371

SECOND CHARGE VERDICT/PLEA:

Unknown

SECOND CHARGE SENTENCE:

THIRD CHARGE:

Knowingly transporting an individual in interstate and foreign commerce with intent that such individual engage in prostitution

THIRD CHARGE US/STATE CODE CITATION:

18 U.S.C. § 2421

THIRD CHARGE VERDICT/PLEA:

Unknown

THIRD CHARGE SENTENCE:

FOURTH CHARGE:

Conspiring to conduct, control, manage, supervise, direct and own all and part of a business, knowing that the business was an illegal money transmitting business, which affected interstate and foreign commerce.

Defendants were brothel owners/managers, transporters, and money transmitters in a large-scale human trafficking ring that recruited South Korean women to work in the United States to support their families at home. They were transported to the U.S. using false immigration documents. Upon arrival, the women were charged with debts (usually in the tens of thousands of dollars range) for their recruitment and transportation, and were placed in a network of brothels purporting to be massage parlors, health spas, etc., but generated most of their revenue from illegal prostitution.
After being delivered to the brothels, the women were supervised by brothel owners/managers, who had them work as prostitutes until they could pay off their debt to the trafficking ring. Women were routinely exchanged between different brothels in the network, depending on demand. The women were not allowed to leave the brothels unless they were using a taxi to get to another brothel in the network. Brothel owners/managers frequently restricted the ability of the women to leave by withholding passports and travel documents, threatening to turn the women in to immigration authorities, and threatening harm to their families in South Korea.
In 2006, an FBI and ICE investigation uncovered the human trafficking ring using wiretaps and undercover agents, and Defendants were arrested in 2006.